Guangzhou: Migration of Form
In Guangzhou, a triennale at the Guangdong Museum of Art allowed Soi the opportunity to work with the porcelain craftsman studio within the city. He learned to paint the images they traditionally worked with and also familiarised himself with techniques that are passed on from master craftsman to student. While stationed there, Soi began reading up historical details that connected this immersion, in China, to other explorations. Buddhism was transmitted from India into China by monks travelling along ancient land and sea routes. The most famous of these travellers is of course Xuanzang, who visited Kashmir during the 7th century CE, motivated by a desire to study Buddhist texts and practices. His accounts provide valuable insights into the region’s history, culture, and the state of Buddhism during that period. Indian monks similarly travelled to China—Soi learned that the Hualin Temple is believed to be the location where Bodhidharma, a Buddhist priest hailing from India, first arrived by sea to spread the teachings of the Buddha in around 520 CE.
These thoughts gave Soi’s work with the porcelain craftsmen a direction—he had recently completed with craftsmen in Srinagar a large 100-tiled work that was conceptualised as an archive of their main designs and motifs. Their outlines became shapes in which the porcelain craftsmen filled in with their traditional patterns as well as motifs related to Qing dynasty patterns that Soi had studied at the Guangdong Museum. Soi also embedded within the images, drawings related to the urban landscape around the area of the workshop (Haizhu Square), thus creating personal compositions ignited by this trajectory.
This work is titled Guangzhou: Migration of Form, a body of work in which Soi utilises what he terms a notational methodology to explore a subject, one that draws in sometimes seemingly unrelated material into the construction of a personal narrative.
